Ok guys, just a short kickoff thread today, probably just 1-2 posts. I still have some stuff around the apartment I want to get knocked out before the weekend is over. One day weekends just aren't enough.

And I, in a bit of a long shot, have a patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/ghostdivision It's a bit of an attempt to make a living creating content full time- quests, streaming, the whole nine. If that's something you'd feel comfortable supporting, awesome. If not, hey, at least I still have a trade skill or two! haha.

As an aside, 12 hour shifts for the week were mentioned last week, so IDK what my schedule's gonna look like this week. If it turns out we're on 12s, then I'll post an update in this thread during lunch tomorrow- if not, then figure we'll be continuing with the vote cutoff at 1900 EST. We'll continue to run either way though, don't worry about that.

That's all the news I have for you!

+++++

Kim, perhaps predictably, fell straight back into her rack as soon as the three of you returned to the squad bay, almost without bothering to take off the little bit she'd put on for evening mess. She looked like she was going to stay up- shooting a couple glances at Jessie as the three of you walked through the ship, but she ended up shambling her way into the squad bay quietly, and was asleep almost as soon as she flopped out on her bed. You'd closed the curtain gently to let her have some privacy.

"So" Jessie says from behind you as you turn around. "What do you think so far?"

You shrug. "Too early to tell."

She nods. "I can understand. Based on what you have now, though."

She takes a seat at the table in the center of the berthing, indicating you should too.

"Any reason we're doing this alone?" You ask, and it's her turn to shrug.

"Maybe you don't like dealing with lots of people?" She asks. "I don't know."

You don't respond, instead taking the offered seat.

"Look it's just that Kat is worried about having you here." She says.

"Because I'm a Bishop?"

"Because you're a Bishop-Laroux." She says. "We already have a Bishop, remember?"

"Just about every witch squadron in the navy has a Bishop." You point out. "And each in the air force and the marine corps"

"Yeah, but you're not just Frank Bishop's kid, you're his only son." She points out. "And with Brigitte Laroux, at that. Your parents are legends in the navy."

"That's not what she's worried about." The witch responds. "She's worried about you being another G- ." She hesitates at the name, a brief look of sorrow crossing over her face. "Garcia."

You shrug. "That issue isn't unique to this squadron. Every composite unit takes that risk. And for what it's worth, I'm sorry about Garcia."

"Thanks, for what it's worth." She says with the barest hint of a smile. "And what if half the witches in the squadron ending up married to you?"

You shake your head. "Not going to happen."

"That doesn't mean Kat's not worried about it." Jessie points out. "Billy's been married to Una for years, before they transferred into the squadron from VF-5. You're single."

"So was Garcia, right?"

She nods. "Yes, but he was still close- to all of us."

You shrug. "That's your business, not mine. But I'm not my father."

"Even if it's just one girl, that's what Kat's worried about. If you- I mean, something could happen and it'd mean someone, one of us, say, isn't really capable of flying for days, maybe longer. That's what she's worried about."

"It's peacetime." You point out. "It's not like she can't just say the squadron is down for a few days while everyone collects themselves. And it's old and played out, but anyone getting into a relationship with a fighter pilot knows that there's risks."

She frowns- you have a point, but she doesn't want to appear to admit it. "And what about Korea? If we go to war there-"

"What about it?" You ask. "Worry about that when it happens."

She sighs. "You're going to be stubborn about this, aren't you."

You shrug. "What should I do? request a transfer? End of the day, this squadron is under strength without my plane and my crew."

"We don't know." She says, after a pause. "Look, I'm sorry I had to be the one that said this."

This is legitimately not our problem. We aren't going to try to get them wrapped up in us, but we can't go into their heads with a psychic scalpel and make them not do so. It's not about what we do, it's about what they do. They need to exercise some damn self-control and introspection and stay the fuck away from the witch-nip if they don't want complications. We're a fighter pilot, our job is to kill people and break things for America, and damned if we're going to let anyone swaddle us in bubblewrap.

>>2232204>If you- I mean, something could happenAnd this is unique to us how? How many other romantically engaged couples are there in the military?

>>2232334This, essentially. Frank wasn't looking to claim Spellcaster either, they were the ones that made the move. So really, if she's worried about us tying the squad in knots, she should be talking to the girls, not us.

>And tell my sister to stop trying to hook me up with them if you want to avoid such things.See if we can slip this in somewhere.

My job is to shoot what they tell me to shoot and other wise fly a very expensive and complex bit of machinery and I already have to babysit the person who it is my job to babysit. What do you want from me here?

>>2232483>Also due to the dead or not, I really want to dig up whatever watery grave Garcia is in and punch him in the face. Whatever fucking manipulations he pulled on these girls is messed up.

This, very much this. Blood's wrapped up in this, after all, and while we don't know for sure what was on that laptop, I feel like it's implied to be either voyeuristic footage at best, sex tapes at worst.

Leaves me wondering more about the RIO. Was she a bitch because she saw the rest of the squadron as competition? Or did they see her as a bitch because she tried to warn them off for their own good? I'd not mind more information from Billy and Una, need some laser-guided truth bombs from them to unravel this shit.

>>Leaves me wondering more about the RIO. Was she a bitch because she saw the rest of the squadron as competition? Or did they see her as a bitch because she tried to warn them off for their own good? I'd not mind more information from Billy and Una, need some laser-guided truth bombs from them to unravel this shit.

I've been wondering this too and have to wonder as well: their Fenrir went down because of a 'mechanical failure'. Has anyone considered that she found out what was on that laptop and decided that maybe he didn't deserve to live?

Also seconding hanging out more with Billy and Una however this shakes out - so what if the witches don't want to get friendly, we'll just bro it up with Not!Will Smith and Not!Sombra.

Who the fuck can we talk about this with even? Like how do we start this conversation. >"So, all the witches were trying to get on Garcia's dick, and now they're worried about trying to get on my dick, but also they hated his RIO and my new wingman and element lead says he was a horndog and not an officer and a gentleman, and I just want to fly planes real good, what do I do?"

>>2232483>I really want to dig up whatever watery grave Garcia is inWe have scant info on him at the moment; it's Billy's word against the rest of the squad. He's not untrustworthy, but the numbers are stacked against him. Could be he had a serious problem with the guy and is trying to poison his memory. Could be he's telling the truth.Personally, I'd rather leave Garcia where he is; nothing good will come from digging up the dead. If we leave well enough alone, we might be able to keep the drama at bay, and he'll be old news soon enough. But if we go digging into him, we're going to buy ourselves a heap of trouble, no matter what we find.

Yeah, I was thinking about Ice. She should be far enough removed from him directly to be able to give an objective assessment. Stasya maybe too. Ice at least, as the skipper of the boat and having experience with witch squadrons being touchy about their steelwing brothers has the highest authority available. If she says "fuck it let them worry, you just worry about your plane and your crew" then that's a clear directive. If she says "do whatever the squadron leader says to do", then fuck it we'll try our best.

>>2232537>and it'd mean someone, one of us, sayah, see, but she's asking us to stay distant with /everyone/, so that if we die, they aren't overly sad. That includes the other steelwing, along with more or less everyone aboard. It does leave the possibility of civilian friends though.

>>2232583I dunno if Ice is a terribly subjective reference though. Remember the trouble she had with Frank, the times she drove herself to tears worrying about him, the times she had to be talked out of transferring him stateside? Also, she's not terribly ...warm with us as a result of our parentage.

>>2232559I'm usually one for avoiding drama, but this is the sort of situation where we need to find out the truth. If he really was manipulating these witches, it should be investigated because that sort of shit was the reason why everyone was suspicious of Fronk.

And it wasn't just Billy, but Una as well. She was the one that brought up that they were thinking of requesting a transfer before Garcia's 'untimely' demise.

>>2232603Conversely I think that's the exact reason we should ask her. She's been through this sort of situation, has had years to think about it and can understand both sides of the argument. Also why we frame the question as part of squad integration.

>>2232613>but this is the sort of situation where we need to find out the truthHonestly though, why? It's not like we can fine him, or court-martial him, or put him in prison. He's dead. Sure, we'll get satisfaction, but at what cost? How the rest of squad going to react if we find anything? What if we don't? It'll ruin any chance of a peaceful integration with the squad. And if we do find something, it's going to tear into them.The numbers are still stacked against them, and they're married. If one of them didn't like him for whatever reason, chances are both of them don't.

>>2232613>but this is the sort of situation where we need to find out the truth.The truth of the matter seems pretty obvious, the witches liked Garcia cause he was putting the moves on them while Billy and Una saw him as a scum that was trying to get his dick wet and possibly did to his 'collection' on his laptop. Hell if the provost didn't look into things when the guy was alive what makes ya think someone will when he's sitting at the bottom of the Pacific along with evidence?

>>2232671>>2232681>>2232651Una mentioned the provosts wouldn't touch him for some reason and I just think there's something fishy going on with him. Not going to push hard on invetigating Garcia, just saying it's something we should think about it.

I do think we should at least talk to Ice and maybe Stasya about him and his RIO though.

>>2232751He's dead, man. What he did or didn't do isn't really gonna do much besides tickle our own gossip's fancy. We know enough about the situation- the witches liked him, billy didn't- to operate within it. Trust me, I've lived through this kind of bullshit in-group faction he-said-she-said about who was supposedly sleeping with who, once the person in question is gone you just let it be gone.At BEST we'll just end up with two contradictory accounts of things that we then have to juggle if we ever talk about the dude. I know life isn't so simple especially when it's fictional so we'll be forced into talking about him as likely as not, but no need to go diving into it.

I could, and otherwise would agree - and yeah that's pretty much how work bullshit works, especially when you just want to stay above it all and do your damn job and go home - but I have a hunch, a weird feeling, that it's going to be important to this story arc somehow. It leaves a lot of unresolved questions. What was on the laptop? How are his actions going to affect our relationship with the squadron going forward? Why wouldn't the provost touch him? There's more to this than Garcia, finding out about him is not by any means the most important part of digging into what happened with him. We're already dealing with ludicrous bullshit that has more to do with him than us.

I mean, in general, unless the specifics come up again, other than maybe getting more metered impressions of him there's no reason to dig into Garcia specifically. We can give a sideeye to certain people who may be involved, but we're Morgan Laroux-Bishop so we probably give a lot of people the sideeye. He's dead, the evidence is buried. I think I want to maybe know a bit more what's up with his RIO. I felt sorry for her with Garcia being a shitheel but the other witches thought she was a pain so...

The more pressing issue immediately besides just "we have a fuck ton of work to do before the Norks do something stupid" is "witches be crazy".

The problem would exist regardless of who came to replace Garcia because people are not machines, they have emotions and will form some sort of relationship with people whom they spend a lot of time in close proximity. The only way to fix that would be to turn the squad from composite to witch-only.

>>2232859>No need to go full MORGAN, P.I. on his deceased ass.It IS kinda hard to gun a man down in a cold, murderous rage when he's already dead.Plus it's not 1982 anymore. The sheer impact of that moment just wouldn't be there in this day and age.

>>2232923Jessie is asking us, apparently on behalf of the squad leader, to actively avoid forming any sort of relationship, especially romantic, with any of our squadmates, so that if we die, they won't be rendered combat-ineffective due to grief.

>>2232204>[X] I do, but I'm not sure what you expect me to do.What a fine mess we've gotten ourselves into

>>2232751>I do think we should at least talk to Ice and maybe Stasya about him and his RIO though.I like this

>>2232537>Also seconding hanging out more with Billy and Una however this shakes out - so what if the witches don't want to get friendly, we'll just bro it up with Not!Will Smith and Not!Sombra.And this

>>2232204[x] Not really, no.I'm going to suggest Morgan be 100% direct on this one. Something like this:"Look, I have no designs on any of you, but if--IF--I wind up with an attachment, I'll make her keeping it together if I go down a condition of our relationship."

Basically just have him promise to bring it up early and often. It's pragmatic and direct and as elegant a solution as we're gonna get with a sticky issue like this. Neither extreme alternative is really feasible--a squadron without any camaraderie isn't, but given how hard the Garcia situation has been, Piper's concerns are pretty well justified.

>>2233426>but given how hard the Garcia situation has been, Piper's concerns are pretty well justified.What's weird to me is that Spellcaster's issues when Frank went down are well known, and they were far from the only squad to have this type of issue. In fact, Wilkins original problem with Frank was for this /exact/ reason. Surely the witch academies have addressed this better than 'don't make attachments', which no one would follow anyway.

Jessie is talking like this is a unique issue, but it certainly isn't.

>>2233439>Surely the witch academies have addressed this better than 'don't make attachments', which no one would follow anyway.Actually, I don't think they ever did?

I can't remember which incident it was, but there was something about a ship fire that killed some men that the ship's witch contingent were close to, and it disabled the entire contingent, but the covens still couldn't figure out what to do about, even decades after teaching the incident in their Academies.

>>2233439Honestly, it makes sense--official doctrine is "be professional" and everyone is expected to listen but ignores it. It probably comes down to each crew and commander to figure out how to get their squadron through something like this--which can't be that common.

>>2233439It was mentioned as the main reason mixed squardons isn't a common practice back in the original SWQ. Recruiting top aces and technical advances in plane hardware have mitigated the problem somewhat, but the incidents still happen

A fire set off compromised bombs while the damage control crews were trying to put them out, killing many of them. Witches could keep boytoys aboard for 'morale' reasons, but everyone on a ship needs to be doing something. So those men were put on damage control. It was what more or less killed witches bringing their boytoys with them on cruises. It came up due to the Sharktwins bringing Joe along using the same system.

That isn't quite the same though. The consort program was for established relationships. This is more about relationships developed over time while working together. There has to be at least a token ship counselor or something, right?

>>2233502I think the biggest thing is just going to be candidness about the possibility. No one can predict the future or be sure they'll take it well, but at least discussing it will help mentally grapple with the idea in the event of the worst.

She sighs. "Just- I don't really know what to say. Just be careful with how close you get."

You don't react to the statement- as much as you want to, it's not worth it. "So, you don't even know me for a day and you're putting me in charge of your emotional wellbeing." You state, flatly.

"That's not-"

"I know. But think about what you're saying. Don't get close in case I go down somewhere. Is that really going to work?"

She sighs. "Look, I know. It's just hard-"

"I know. I've taken the same classes about the issue, seen the same statistics. Heard the same things."

"So you understand."

"Doesn't mean I agree."

She opens her mouth to protest, but you shake your head. "Look. I don't have designs on any of you. I barely know you. But if- and I stress if- something does happen, I'll make sure her keeping it together if I go down is part of the deal."

She leans back in her chair. "So that's the best you can do?"

"I can ask for a transfer." You say, flatly. "I'm willing to bet I'd get it, too. Not like this is the only squadron in 7th fleet that needs a fenrir team."

>>2234615Honestly, I think I can see why. She basically had to knowingly demand something unreasonable of Morgan, while still grieving, on behalf of her commander and squadron in (ridiculous) official capacity. None of them are at their best just yet.

>>2234615She's not anywhere near as bad a Longstreet, the emotional cheapshot queen. But yes, it is bugging me she's asking this of us. As stated>>2233439composite wings losing their steelwings isn't new. They should be familiar with what happens, and if it bothers them, taking steps of their own to mitigate the issues that can some about. You don't just ask someone to stay disconnected from everyone so you won't be sad if they die.

I mean, I think it's fair to say we're starting a little hard-pressed. We're in a complex and demanding fighter (though that was our fault). We're on a boat with probably our least close step-mom as our CO. We are replacing a guy who was well liked but seems shifty. Regardless of the personal element, we have been straddled with taking care of a very young backseater (again, our own meta fault but it's not like it wouldn't be complex all around). But I don't think we should take it out on any of the witches right now.

She's gonna have to be pretty fucking good with this "he was our own Frank" line though. We the readers know Frank pretty good since we were him, and Morgan should have a pretty solid and honest idea of Frank (though, post-war obviously).

>>2234557>[] Point out that it's kind of late and you've got work to do in the morning.I'm fine with letting her continue too but we sure as shit don't need to go jumping facefirst into the he-said-she-said game

Mostly because I want Morgan to be able to pick apart their image of Frank if necessary. He probably knows way more about the actual difficulty that Frank went through and the emotional turmoil of the family.

Hell im sure Maman told us the story of how she thought Frank was trying to get some ‘privite’ time with her despite just offically getting into a relationship only for him to give her the rifle she was eyeing by cutting a deal with the U.N.

>>2234638>"If she's worried about trouble with the covens,>"She's worried you're going to be your father >"That's not what she's worried about.>"That doesn't mean Kat's not worried about it." >"Even if it's just one girl, that's what Kat's worried about.

They're still grieving, so give them some time. That said, if they keep this up I'll be right there with you asking for a transfer.

>>2234639>She's gonna have to be pretty fucking good with this "he was our own Frank" line though.You're right, it'll be interesting to see her interpretation of him.

>>2234651>He probably knows way more about the actual difficulty that Frank went through and the emotional turmoil of the family.He should have some idea, but remember, Maman raised us herself until we were ~10. We didn't interface with the Bishops before then, and didn't live with them. Sidenote, how did we get our last name if Maman denied Frank as the father for the first 10 years?

>>2234658>The mixed responses is giving me a slight whiplashIf sister tries again, we need to tell her straight to cut it out. If we tell her we've been approached and literally told to avoid such things, either she'll get the message, or she'll deal with problem at the root - the other girls.

>>2234721>officially that Morgan will be accepted into the family.Well yes, but I meant legally. Did she change his name after the 'reunification'?And 'accepted', sure, but Maman didn't move in with Ice & Slider & Katya and change her name to Bishop, nor did she sent Morgan to live with Frank. It's a different dynamic.

>>2234701If Frank didn't at least talk to Morgan about what happened a little bit between flight school and everything else I'd eat my hat but he should at the very least have a less tinted view of Frank. It's more that "Frank Bishop" is probably a larger than life figure by now and a guy trying to be suave and hit on the girls is exactly what he was not.

>>2234700Ana probably has a very different perspective than Morgan on Frank. I wouldn't be surprised if she made the problem worse by talking about her family.

It's been a while, but I don't remember banging witches being all that high on Frank's priorities until close to the end of the quest, even with the dates we went on. It's bullshit piloting skills that made Frank's reputation, and there's absolutely no fucking way Garcia was that good.

Morgan... well, he kind of got the short end of the stick. It's not anyone's fault, really, but the witch harem didn't work out too well for him, so if you think about it for a second, it's obvious that he wouldn't want to hook up with the squadron the way Garcia did. It seems like this is more about the squadron buying into their fantasies of Frank than anything else, and they only just now realized that the fantasy isn't actually that great if the pilot can't even keep his plane above sea level.

>>2234753Frank earned his way into their hearts the hard way by being a damn good pilot, squadron mate and all around decent guy. Then there was him getting shot down, maturing and then becoming even more of a pillar than before. Garcia, even if he was a decent person, almost certainly hasn't had that deep of interactions with them.

Our idea of being romantic as Frank was mostly constrained to being A( a decent human being and giving a shit about their lives and what was going on in it, even the witches we didn't shag and B( being literally willing to die before letting anybody on our side get hurt. Our (selective) obliviousness to the witches' actual attraction to us was a major personality point for a long time.

>>2234744>If Frank didn't at least talk to Morgan about what happened a little bit between flight school and everything else I'd eat my hatFor sure, but I meant more that any of the sisters would likely have a better perspective, having spent more time with the wives and Frank himself.

>>2234749I'm sure it was open to him, but I doubt Morgan's really spent much time there outside of family functions. It would be so completely different from what he knew, Ice doesn't really like him, and he's more of a solitary kinda guy anyway.

>>2234753We had that running thing the with Mav and Slider, but it was pure talk. We really just like to try to rile each other up.

>>2234756>but I don't remember banging witches being all that high on Frank's prioritiesmetawise, the readers were of course interested, but there wasn't an obvious a 'press here to sex' option until the deciding of the Frankbowl. Plus the waifu wars prevented any one girl from making too much progress.IC, it took a while, but Frank did realize he had multiple girls after him, but didn't do anything about it.TL;DR you are correct.

>Morgan... well, he kind of got the short end of the stick.I admit, I a little surprised Morgan isn't at least a resentful of Frank. Not because of anything Frank's done to him, but because everything always seem to come back to him somehow.

>>2234769I think it's a little too early to tell. Camera? The one that would have taken the pictures on the sunken laptop? Just about everything electronic has a camera in it, I doubt it would have been an proper camera.

>>2234793>Ice doesn't really like himThat's neither what Ghost said, nor what I got from our earlier interactions.Ice doesn't think of Morgan as her son, and that's perfectly valid because he's NOT. She doesn't dislike him, she's just not particularly warm towards him either.

>they only just now realized that the fantasy isn't actually that great if the pilot can't even keep his plane above sea level.Made me laugh far harder then it should have.

>>2234780That would also fit into people shadowrunning that the RIO crashed the bird though its probably just that shadowrunning

>>2234793>Ice doesn't really like him,Go read the first thread again mate>The situation they've got now is... amicable at least- She doesn't hate him- she's even on relatively friendly terms with him. But she's also made it clear- she's not his mom, and neither expects nor intends to act like she is.

>>2234822>Morgan knows everything besides the Berlin battle inwhich no one wants to talk about.It's Crete their tight lipped about but Morgan's pieced together enough to have what he thinks is a good guess at what occurred.

>>2234796>>2234809>Ice doesn't really like himClearly I used the wrong words. Looking over that, I see how it came across wrong. I was trying to say she's lukewarm with us, not that she actively dislikes us.

>>2234806>So far, it looks like he resents other people who compare him to his Frank, but is otherwise fine with Frank. So far, yea, but I imagine he get this sort of thing all the time. It would be hard not to resent the 'source' of all those issues.

>>2234822Yea, I dunno. I could see it happening, doesn't mean it did happen. Metawise, I doubt we'll every choose to resent Frank though.

>Also slider and Katya did treat him as familyI feel like Ice's lack of warmth would still be a deterrent, but maybe that's just me.

>>2234848Ana liked Garcia as well though she doesn't seem to be handling his death as hard as Becca or Piper are, with Jessie seemingly being more or less the same as Ana in that regard. Though it seems Becca was quite close with Garcia, with Piper not that far behind as well so that would explain them hurting the most. >>2234845>It would be hard not to resent the 'source' of all those issues.Morgan seems to have a good enough head on his shoulders to avoid being resentful towards Frank, wouldn't really be productive. I probably didn't word that too well

You guys seem to be forgetting that our maman is the Mother of Night, and that they had to send her in after us to WAIVE our SERE training.

They sent her in after us to waive SERE. We're utterly capable of being a nice guy, but frankly?

I don't think we should be. We're new to a squadron that lost it's steelwing pilot and RIO, yes, but-- that pilot sounded sleazy as fuck, couldn't keep his plane above sea level, and the provosts wouldn't touch him. That sounds like he had a very influential family member or family friend, so if we DO decide to investigate this stuff, we need to be careful.

And for this Jessie to come to US, and tell US not to get into anyone's hearts in case we bite the bucket? That's kind of bullshit, frankly. We're here to fly things very fast for Uncle Sam and break what Uncle Sam needs broken, very fast, very hard, not get our dicks wet. Garcia seems to have forgotten that, to the detriment of an active combat unit in what might very well soon be a combat deployment. Fuck 'em, and fuck him.

>>2235235We're a nice, if quiet, blunt and FUCKING SCARY, person. I don't think rocking the boat on something like this is super necessary, ESPECIALLY considering the dude died like 3 days ago. I know if someone talked shit about someone I looked up to who died not even a week before, especially someone who had never met the guy and I've known for less than a day, I'd fucking clean their clock.

>>2235235Look, I know that the rules of drama and fiction decree that this is all going to be ~important~ and ~a thing~, but fuck Chekhov, and fuck his gun too. We're here to do a job, we'll do the job. We're not going to go digging around to find the Truth about how much of a scumbag this guy was or wasn't, because that's kind of COUNTERPRODUCTIVE IN SO MANY WAYS to the process of the rest of the squadron getting the fuck over him. That's what we want, right? We want the witches to get over whatever they felt about him- which is no longer important since he's gone- so we can all work as a nice nork-murdering team.

And if they're gonna keep making a thing out of how ~hard~ they've been hit by this loss then well, fuck, that's plenty of reason not to touch any of them with our ten-foot pole even besides the fact that half of them are related to us. That's on them. Not quite the same as 'don't stick your dick in crazy', but if a girl (or gaggle of them as the case may be) isn't able to live with what you do with your life, you just cruise on by. They can go sniffle into their red flags and feel safe in their lack of scheduled dickings, for all I personally care. Yet another set of reasons why Wendy waifu, too.

>>2235259I wholeheartedly agree, but I'm hoping hearing a non-negative opinion of the guy will cool anons down. I'd really rather just leave the dead buried. Nothing good will come from digging into this.

>>2235264Non negative /= an unbiased opinion. That said I do want to hear actual details so we can start putting a picture together and get an idea of what sort witch powder keg we are sitting on this time.

>>2235259Just remember what our maman taught us--we can spare their feelings if it's irrelevant. If this keeps happening once they pull themselves together, THEN it's a problem. Right now it's just a shitty situation.

Also, personally think we shouldn't be venturing much in the way of Garcia opinions to them at all, especially not now. We're late to the party and no matter what anyone tells us, it's never going to be more than he said she said for us.

On the one hand, I want the witches to stop bothering us with their dumb Garcia bullshit. There's a long list of people who should have dealt with this problem long before it messed the squadron up this badly, and the new guy sure as hell isn't on it.

On the other hand, the easiest way to make the witches stop bothering us with their dumb Garcia bullshit is to do what Jessie wants and avoid getting close to the squadron, which certainly isn't going to work. We're part of the team now and that means putting up with the rest of the squadron until they get over it and move on.

>>2235524>But with that said she better have a very good explanation on comparing him with frankEvery post-war witch grew up dreaming of finding her own Frank Bishop. All the documentaries, books, movies, comics didn't help either. I don't think there's anything else to it, really. Or that's my interpretation at least.

>>2235680>Every post-war witch grew up dreaming of finding her own Frank Bishop.See I'm just imagining a Witch who dreams about Jake Bishop instead and is kind of a smug hipster about it.Not least because I'll admit I thought TW89 had better girls. Not that the flying squid girls are bad, but Rockfield is a beautiful fucking war goddess.

The sharks were also witches as well, which probably gets them leeway in composite units. I don't know if they ever spelled it out, but I assume they were put in steelwings because the backseater lost a leg and couldn't into strikers anymore, but I don't think we actually had that conversation.

We know there's like, netflix shows and shit, so definitely at some point. Maybe when Frank got out? Actually, probably around when some of the girls needed money for school. Even if all four parents were working there's a fuckton of kids.

Solid comedic timing, but do people know much about Rex? Like, obviously Frank is the war hero so people have heard of him, but he was always kind of quiet about stuff I don't feel like he'd be super famous.

>>2235259>Wendy waifuI might disagree with you on what we need to do about Douchebag McFucknozzle and how he's fucked up the witches in the squadron, but goddamn do you have some patrician motherfucking taste, my fellow Roman.

>>2236390I think Ghost said the more effort they put into it, the longer they stay looking young. Something about how Ice didn't bother with it as much, and so looked older than the others. I can't imagine Wendy would have bothered either.

And that's only compared to normal women anyway. If you know they're a witch, every little age mark would count for more.

>>2236399I'd be afraid of them getting nosey if we posted anything personal, though it would be amusing to watch.

>>2236566>shenanigansI'm all for shenanigans if we can swing a dry humor style, in keeping with out quieter nature. In this case I think it'd have the best effect if we appear single for a while before posting the photo.

>>2236429If you know the woman in the picture is a witch, you also know they likely are a lot older than they appear.

>>2236630I'd assume we have at least one night witch, that seems to be pretty standard. Heal witch, probably not as certain. Goose was of moderate talent at best in 89 and what she did was almost all off screen.

You think a few things- chiefly among them that that's basically the exact opposite of what Billy and Una insinuated. Second is it's getting late, and you could use sleep. Still, you cock an eyebrow at the comparison to your father, and she continues.

"He was... there for us. Whenever we needed someone to talk to or go to for advice or anything else, he was there for us. I went through a nasty break-up a few months back, he stayed up with me." She smiles, her eyes looking somewhere past you. "He was always inviting us to his place in town for barbecues or to go shopping or-"

"Dates." You state flatly, and she blinks.

"What? No, not at all. We were all there, me and Becca and Kat. Ana's always gone back up north with her mom after we get into port again, but the rest of us except Billy and Una would see each other a couple times a week, even off duty."

"He cared about us." She says, trying to sum up her feelings for the man as simply as possible.

You nod, though you keep silent. You'd have comments you'd like to make- asking about the accusations Billy leveled, for example- but you doubt it'd do you any favors.

"I miss him." She says. "I miss all his stupid sayings and his back rubs and how he'd always do all our laundry. I just... "

She sighs and shakes her head. "I can't believe he's really gone."

You nod, understanding. While her comment about the back rubs lent some semblance of credibility to your element lead's claims, there just isn't enough to go on- and you honestly don't know how much you care.

"We still need to see to his personal effects." She says, after a minute, looking over at the hatchway. "He didn't have any next of kin listed, so we just threw it all in a box and sent it to storage. Kat got hold of his father not too long ago, and he'd said he'd like Garcia's effects."

She pauses. "I- Look, I hate to ask this, especially after what I just said, but can you come help me move it? I don't- I don't know if I can do it myself, and no one else will help. I think if we get it sent off, maybe that'll give us some closure."

[] Maman always did tell you to do what you could, Yeah, you'll help. [] Maman always told you that people need to handle their own baggage- it's not your place to help.

>>2236683This is pretty much the polar opposite of the Billy has said. If you're looking for a reason to dislike the guy, some of that sound bad. But with Billy's bias, it all sound perfectly reasonable. That's the same sort of things Frank would have done.

>[] Maman always did tell you to do what you could, Yeah, you'll help.

>I think if we get it sent off, maybe that'll give us some closure." Man, I hope so. With some luck, they can get over him and we won't have to hear about him anymore.

>>2236704Hardly polar opposite it's more that there's not much to go on. Shit and what there is to go on could used to argue either opinion. Either way though, Billy and Una were planning on requesting a transfer before the incident happen. That and the fact they kept themselves separate from the squadron whenever Garcia was around is telling.

>>2236806The laptop went under if Billy's right, but I'm betting we'll find something in his stuff that would ruin the squadron's image of him if they learn about it and Jessie will freak out and ask us what she should do about it.

>>2236806Sounds like it's all boxed up already, we should just need to carry it.

>>2236815>TransferCould easily mean they didn't like the guy, not that there was something wrong with him. If you don't like someone it's easy to see evidence that supports your dislike, thus their calling him a creep and such.

>>2236824If it isn't already packaged up, we shouldn't be rummaging through his stuff anyway, even if we could get away with it while Jessie is right there.

>>2236683>[X] Maman always did tell you to do what you could, Yeah, you'll help.

So this is a chance to go through his shit without actually going through his shit where it'd be a BAD THING to do.

Also:

>"He was... there for us. Whenever we needed someone to talk to or go to for advice or anything else, he was there for us. I went through a nasty break-up a few months back, he stayed up with me." She smiles, her eyes looking somewhere past you. "He was always inviting us to his place in town for barbecues or to go shopping or-"

>"Dates." You state flatly, and she blinks.

>"What? No, not at all. We were all there, me and Becca and Kat-

Sure as fuck sounds like sleazeball trying to hit the appropriate checkmarks to me.

>>2236799You get that cursed produce out of here, you son of a bitch!>>2237046>Does the Fenrir VTOL?Hopefully not, vtol's a stupid, maintenance-intensive gimmick that's needlessly hard on airframes and is only "a thing" because the Marines still have a nostalgiaboner for the Harrier, a plane that was never very good to begin with.

>>2237136True, though the F-22 had like a 38 hour maintenance cycle, so it's not entirely their fault, though I don't know enough about either fighter or the technical challenges to make a statement either way, though I have a feeling that the stealth aspects of it are probably to blame.

Also: Pretty much everyone agrees that the JSF Program was a waste and that having all three services have their own craft is a far more cost-effective measure and generally would have resulted in better equipment.

>>2237142But when it comes right down to it, you just can't escape the facts.And that's this right here.All you fuckers wish you flew the ViperProb'ly since the time you wore a diaperWe got every mission that you doAnd we fly 'em all better'n youYeah all you fuckers wish you flew the Viper!

Yeah, unfortunately, some people can't see the forest for the trees. ...I'm not quite sure how it got this bad, but then I'm reminded of some of the abusive relationships I've seen over the years, and suddenly, it makes more sense.

He starts small, he offers to do chores, he listens to their problems, he gives them a place to hang out. Basically slow-rolling his way. Morgan calls it like it is when he said it was "dates" they just didn't realize because they weren't one-on-one. Slowly he works his way up to more intimate stuff. And hey, who is to say he also didn't have some noble intentions or good impact, but as an outside perspective it looks shifty as fuck.

Johnny Nork cannot cross the 38th parallel fast enough. I miss the fucking weird cold war shit already. At least can we dance with some migs and get sent to Top Gun again?

>>2237247>At least can we dance with some migs and get sent to Top Gun again?Doubt the Navy is gonna send a composite squadron, let alone Fenrirs and their crews, back stateside with tensions high on the peninsula. Especially since they just got back up to strength

>>2237254>with tensions high on the peninsula.I'm wondering how this will be much of a war at all. IRL, China stated it wouldn't back NK if they pick a fight with the US. And alarming as their missile tech is, we would still absolutely crush them.

>>2237269>>2237273North Korea also wasn't ruined by 50 years of despotic mismanagement. It's essentially a proxy state of China as much as South Korea is a proxy state of Japan, and both countries are roughly on par with each other in terms of tech level.

>>2237136I don't think you understand just how big of a deal the F-35B is. To put it bluntly, a complete gamechanger. And they'd probably not be significantly different. F-35s already don't have THAT much parts commonality. A and C models don't have the lift fans anyways.

>>2237296So China would back NK then? Does China not do a ton of business with the US like IRL?

>>2237299That's a good question, actually. What's the updated state of the super/anti-martian weapons? After what happened at the end of SW89, I imagine there were some shakeups regarding their management, if nothing else.

>>2237306I don't think you realize that there already EXISTS a piece of hardware that can take off and land vertically. It's called a helicopter.This ridiculous idea that we need one magic bullet akrcraft to do every job is utterly asinine.

>>2237322>Am I misremembering that the Martians back on Mars attempted to colonize Venus, or that they also made colonization attempts in the Outer Planets?

I dunno why they would have bothered with a invasion of earth if they were going to colonize other planets anyway. Why go to the trouble of removing the existing life from a planet when there's an undefended one next door?Actually, was an official reason ever discovered for the invasion?

>>2237334>Why go to the trouble of removing the existing life from a planet when there's an undefended one next door?If the defended one is so much nicer than the undefended one, and the defenses are expected to be easily steamrolled with your own superior technology, that the expenditure in resources and personnel is deemed less than a terraforming project?

>>2237306Instead they get a convenient void the entire height of the fuselage with provisions for an absurdly high output PTO shaft off of the turbine. Coincidentally, solid state lasers keep getting better and better.

>>2237331I do realize that helicopters exist, but to be blunt, you have no idea what either helicopters or the F-35B does if you have that opinion. The F-35 in general changes warfare as we know it. The F-35B in particular makes the USMC and USN INSANELY more capable than it is in the present time. It isn't a magic bullet. It's just a multirole with land based, carrier based, and STOVL variants. The lift fan in the B only takes up space for fuel in the other variants(and makes the internal weapons bays somewhat thinner). It is not the same as a helicopter, it is a full powered multirole fighter incorperating both stealth, insane sensors that dwarf any that came before, and the ability to share the information those sensors provide to any aircraft in the sky, system on land, or ship on the sea. To say that it is a paradigm shift that makes most other aircraft obsolescent would not be a joke.

>>2237357Ok. So my question is, is the STVOL worth the additional 14 hours on the maintenance cycle? Cause right now, last I heard, we're looking at 50 hours of maintenance for every hour of flight time. Do you realize how fucking ridiculous that is? For every hour that those planes are in the air they need to spend 4+ 12 hour days in the shop. That's just not fucking practical. It limits the number of aircraft that can be in the air at any given point, limits the ability of a carrier to project power, and limits the familiarity that the pilots can develop with their airframe.

>>2237400So I went and googled your 50 hours maint per 1 hour of flight time figure. There's only one obvious result with such an exact number, an article on defense-aerospace from about a year ago. To arrive at that figure they took some numbers from a presolicitation for a contract posted by the navy, another number that as far as I can tell they pulled straight from their ass, but it might have been an educated asspull.

The contract text states how many F-35s they expect to be out and about in 2019. That figure seems accurate enough.The contract also says "an estimated total Level of Effort of approximately 17-Million man-hours" over those two years.defense-aerospace then says that the F-35 will only fly 250 flight hours per years, and this is a figure that's either based on nothing or on other typical planes, I dunno but we'll let it slide for now. They then take that 17 million, divide it by the number of planes, and that's your maintenance hours per flight hours right?

Wrong, I'm pretty sure. That 17 million man hours of effort isn't for maintenance. It's for, and I quote once more,"for non-recurring and recurring sustainment support for all fielded F-35 aircraft for FY18-19. The material and non-recurring sustainment activities include: Training Material and Infrastructure, Initial Spares, Support Equipment, Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS) Material and Infrastructure, Site Surveys and Site Activation Activity, Depot Activation, Reliability, Maintainability and Health Maturation, and the Structural Integrity Program."

It's the fucking initial rollout overhead, not the shit you have to do every time you fly the goddamn plane. If it takes a year to build a railway station I don't include that time in how long the train has to get serviced per run. Like, I don't blame you for not picking through the source contract, especially when the article deliberately rephrased 'level of effort' and [all that other shit] as 'maintenance and sustainment', but this just looks shoddy

>>2237448And since it's still in the rolling-out phase, even setting the initial costs aside there's gonna be some fluctuations as everyone gets settled in. Now I'm kinda curious how different nations in previous big plane diasporas compared to one another pacewise in hitting their logistics stride.

Also, the contract in questionhttps://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=9b9601a7c794177beb1da540fea58157&tab=core&tabmode=list&=

>>2237400To be blunt, you heard wrong and are misinterpreting information. Man hours per flight hour have not been released, and the sole source that makes claims is verifiably retarded, as seen >>2237428. I was making a longer post to counter said source, but this covers everything I was going to say and more. So let's go on further.

Anyways, the best thing we can determine to see if the maintenance is possible is their performance at Red Flag. Admittedly, this is the A model.

>The view from Red Flag was quite different. The 13 F-35As maintained a 90 percent mission capable rate during the three-week exercise, respectable for any combat aircraft. Planes did have problems, including one that lost a generator, but every issue was dealt with inside of 24 hours, according to two Air Force officers talking to reporters today at the end of the exercises.and>And the mission systems, which enable most of the plane’s combat capabilities, performed beyond pilots’ expectations. “All our mission systems were up every time,” Watkins said, noting that he would often fly his F-16 with one or more of its mission systems down and just have to find work-arounds. “For the F-35 at this Red Flag, every mission system was up every time.”https://breakingdefense.com/2017/02/f-35a-at-red-flag-90-mission-capable-key-systems-up-every-flight/

Seems fairly good to me. Covering every issue within 24 hours seems quite reasonable for a combat aircraft.

Of note is the F-35 is actually pretty well designed for maintenance, supposedly the maintainers are happy with it. Here's one reason why: if you want to work on a specific piece of equipment in the plane, 90% of the time, you just open one cover, and you can already work on it. That's pretty big. In a conventional aircraft, more than likely you'd have to take out multiple other parts of the aircraft to get to what you're looking for, and then put them back when you're done. A big pain in the ass.

And you need to remember, the STOVL equipment on the B is not on the A or C. You seem to be getting that confused on that point. Additionally, you're seeming to not understanding this. F-35Bs aren't for big carriers. They're for the gator navy. Amphibs. The F-35B can take off of much smaller platforms, giving these ships a bite to match even the larger carriers. Or they could launch F-35Bs off of much smaller airfields, that are less improved. In short, they take off from everywhere most planes can't. They take the insane abilities offered by the F-35, and take them anywhere. And give you more naval platforms to fly them from. All for only a substantial but non-crippling loss in internal fuel.

>>2237456>if you want to work on a specific piece of equipment in the plane, 90% of the time, you just open one cover, and you can already work on it.That was one of the biggest gripes about the F-22, right? Seems like a real 'lessons learned' deal

>>2237467There's always /k/. They're always shitposting about it but there are people on there that know their shit.

>>2237316You gotta remember that China was an active participant in the previous war and they aligned with Russia. Chinese and American forces actually got into situations where they shot at each other. That sort of animosity isn't going to immediately go away, especially since American intervention thwarted Chinese ambitions to seize the entire Korean peninsula.

As for Anti-Martian weaponry, the US has a ground based laser network designed to intercept Martian drop pods. They also have a militarized space station in orbit that can drop Marines anywhere on the planet, under the specific guarantee they only be used in the event of an extra-terrestrial threat.

At the current rate of technological advancement the next Strike Witches quest is going to be the second martian war in a hundred years. With witches wearing battlesuits like they're the mobile infantry.

>>2237458>That was one of the biggest gripes about the F-22, right?It's a gripe with many aircraft. I don't remember any problems with it in particular, but I didn't follow that program very closely. If I had to make some speculation, I could see it being an issue, but cannot judge whether it would be better or worse than other aircraft.

>>2237467That's a mature standpoint to take, but a very difficult question to answer. As Merc points out, the /k/ threads are actually a decent place to start. For one or two years, the threads were actually pretty decent. If you come across a namefag by the name of Dragon029 or somesuch, you should listen to him, he's pretty well informed. Other than that? Take a look at the numbers, even the ones that are just on Wikipedia, for yourself, and compare them to other aircraft. Take a look at some of the videos that have been released. Ask specific questions. Gain a basic understanding of the science behind things, and how it relates to practice. Honestly, learning as much as I did about the plane took a LONG time, and my knowledge has atrophied this past 9 months or so because I've not refreshed myself. If you have questions about any one area in particular, I'd be happy to help and to point you in the right direction for the more complex problems, although I doubt this is the best venue for it.

>>2237498Aight, so you mentioned earlier that the F-35 is a game changer, but how exactly is it a game changer? Like, what's does it do differently than a similar aircraft that causes it to completely shift that paradigm? Explaining the paradigms pre and post F-35 would also help.

>>2237503In the most basic of terms, it's a shift from the WWII/Cold War era of thinking that "my fighter needs to be faster and more agile than the enemy" to the modern "I need to see my enemy and shoot him before he sees and shoots me."

For something a bit more detailed, you can watch this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxK6O5--9Z0

It's a lecture from a test pilot who's flown both legacy and 5th gen aircraft and how 5th gen planes will shit on everything that came before them.

Anyways, you can see how each of these is a substantial increase in capability from each other. Or you should, other than sensor fusion and networking. Those are a bit more difficult to explain.

So basically, the big thing in this 5th generation of jets is not how fast they fly. It's not how well they turn. It's how well they collect and disseminate information, and how they prevent the enemy from doing the same to them. Basically, the big thing about aerial warfare is that you need to see the enemy before you can kill them. And if you can see the guy without being seen, you've pretty much got him dead to rights. Historically, this has been very true, but limited by technology. In WW2, one's understanding of the battlespace was limited to what he could see out of his own cockpit. A pilot had very little information to go with. He might get someone telling him directly over the radio, but that's not a lot. Then you started getting radar, but the first ones were difficult to read, and required a lot of effort to have work for you. Eventually, you got sensors that are fairly easy to read, but you have to look in multiple different locations, and they could be difficult to translate to your mental picture. What sensor fusion is is taking all that information and putting it in one easily seen location, and collating the results of different sensors and figuring out exactly what they're looking at. And then with new advanced datalinks, they can spread that information they find to every plane out there. So now, you have that Jurassic Park quote about velociraptors, but with planes.

>>2237538>>2237544While true, there are limits, and doing so would require either massive processing power and/or massive output power. And stealth has a huge headstart. So it's not likely to really "destroy" stealth within the next 40 or 50 years. But anyways, the thing about stealth is that it's just simple physics. It WILL diminish the range at which you can see the object. That's not going away. A non-stealth aircraft will always be seen from substantially longer away than a stealth aircraft.

And at the moment, and for the foreseeable future, stealth is an insane advantage. Using published figures, an F-35 going head on with a Su-35 will only be picked up on radar at just over 20 nmi. The F-35, on the other hand, could see the Su-35 from over 100 nmi away. Against SAMs, they vastly decrease the threat radius. Etc etc.

>>2237567They're not mutually exclusive, but can make things more difficult. However, the F-22, for example, is considered by many to be the finest, most maneuverable dogfighter in existence, and was certainly designed to be, yet has stealth, and is best off shooting at planes from 80 miles away completely unseen. The F-35 has less emphasized the insane extent of dogfighting that the F-22 took it to, but it is probably a capable dogfighter, based on what we've seen. You probably heard that the F-35 lost a dogfight to an F-16, but that was another misreport. That case had an early F-35 maneuvering using an F-16 as a reference, in order to determine if they could loosen their control laws yet or not.

You will get the crowd of people who say that dogfighting is pretty much dead, and I think most would agree that dogfighting is very unlikely when fighting conventional aircraft. Most fighting likely will be when you and your buddies shove AMRAAMs up people's asses from long distance, probably without being seen.

>>2237480>militarized space station in orbitDoes it have a kilometer long gun barrel? Because if so, I fully expect it to get de-orbited towards a major population center, and when that time comes, I think we all know what must be done.

Honestly, as Frank we only got in a up-close tussle because of objectives or we ran out of long range shit. We were perfectly content going "Merlin, can we blow this guy up from very far away?" as long as we had the munitions to do it.

Sure. When the shooting starts, carriers are multibillion-dollar HVTs with five thousand hostages aboard. It's pretty easy to take them down in exercises. Submarines do it all the time. You can overwhelm their combat group's ability to defend with numerous small craft - a Marine general did this not so long ago. And I'm not sure what >>2238457 means by 'cruise missile propaganda', but yes, you can overwhelm a carrier group with enough missiles. In principle, taking down a carrier is simple. Not easy, but simple. Use threats that are naturally difficult to defend against, or simply overwhelm the carrier group's ability to actually deal with everything.

Consider this: the Russians have used missiles and a superb air defense system to turn the Baltic into a no-go zone for the US Navy. China's plan for dealing with Taiwan, if they ever decide it's worthwhile, is no doubt to steamroll any defense with a few thousand missiles. Our rivals know exactly how to deal with carrier groups. Now, why, then, do we still have carrier groups?

We still have them, and use domestic propaganda to make them still seem worthwhile, because there's no better way to break a small country. It's a very visible reminder that we have more firepower in one chunk of our Navy than most countries have in sum total. Put very simply and very bluntly, carriers are tools of intimidation and imperialism, meant to force others into line, and it serves the same purpose the Athenian navy would have in the days of the Delian League. If countries aren't lapdogs of other powers such as the Russians or Chinese, then having a carrier group off their coast dramatically limits their options, effectively down to 'do it' and 'or else'.

I can set that opinion on such things aside well enough to play this quest, because Ace Combat Quest with pantsless girls is fun. But if we're going to talk about real life? Well...heh.

[x] Maman always did tell you to do what you could, Yeah, you'll help.

You nod- Maman always stressed that you should help when and where you could. In this case, something as simple as carrying a box is easy enough.

“Thanks.” She says, standing up. “It's down a few decks, follow me.”

Briefly, you're concerned she's trying to get you alone somewhere- you wouldn't put it past a witch, especially one that just lost what was at the very least a close friend. You put it out of your mind just as quickly- even if she was, you don't rate her chances of getting very far with anything she might attempt very highly.

You follow her out of the squad bay and down to hangar deck. There's some general goods storage near the front, things that either still need to be stored aboard or sent off when the carrier onboard delivery birds fly out next time. She leads you into one of the storage rooms and pulls a small box out from under a pile, checking the label.

>>2239237>[] Tell her you're thinking Billy may be right.Seriously, he didn't just keep everything on a USB flashdrive with a portable install of Linux on it so nothing is tied down to a specific computer?It's like he wanted to be seen as shifty by anyone taking a cursory look at his behavior.

>>2239200Maybe, yeah. Seems like it. I'm a bit foggy, but it hits all the major details I remember.

>>2239229I'm sure. ;) My views on such things - a good many things concerning the use of force and our foreign policy - are rather atypical, I suppose, when you consider that I fucking love guns, vote conservative and am a veteran.

>>2239250>>2239251>>2239259>>2239270Maybe something along the lines of "I don't know why, but I do know that there is absolutely no reason why he would need to have his laptop in the plane, for flying or otherwise."

>>2239237>[x] Tell her you don't know and can't possibly know. Let's just get this done and let it go.It's not like we have any proof, and it's not like she's likely to listen in her current state. Let's finish this and move on

>[x] Tell her you don't know and can't possibly know. Let's just get this done and let it go.

Like, if we can inception her into questioning on her own, that's fine. He didn't need the computer to fly the plane. But this PI shit is not in our job description. If he had it on him, it's fucking GONE now, and I'm sure as fuck not going in the drink to find it.

>>2239267>yea no, this is now going into possible espionage territoryMaybe that would be a better way to frame it when asked?

Like, the witches will get all emotionally defensive if we frame it as "Garcia was emotionally manipulating you", but if we go with "hey, there are regs against bringing non-authorized computer equipment with recording, downloading, and uploading capability into the cockpit of a Fenrir", maybe it'll get through better.Because, shit, if there's any kind of open port in the Fenrir cockpit, he could have been downloading the software suite, running packet sniffers to examine the datalinks and the network, and a whole pile of things that could fall in the espionage category.

>>2239237>[X] Tell her you don't know and can't possibly know. Let's just get this done and let it go.

Say, could signals from the laptop have interfered with the systems in his plane? Mind you, this is coming from experience with airlines telling me to switch off my electrical devices during takeoff/landing.

>>2239237She just told us they thought of him as their own Frank guys. How's she going to react when the new guy bad mouths the beloved dead guy? It's certainly not going to be "gee, you might be right. Let's investigate!"

>>2239183To be blunt, you're an idiot who doesn't know what you're talking about. You know just enough to get yourself into trouble, but not enough to have a real understanding of the issue.

First off, lets discuss missile saturation. Yes, missile saturation is the most simple way to deal with carriers, in theory. That was the Soviet plan all the way through the Cold War: a regiment of Badgers all launch anti-ship missiles at once. The sheer mass of the volley was necessary in order to penetrate the carrier group's defenses and hopefully hit the carriers inside them. Unfortunately for your theory, the US realized this long ago and has gone through many steps to increase their defenses against this. One of the most basic is the rise of VLS as opposed to arm launchers, which lets you maintain a much higher rate of fire. Another is the SM-6 missile, which has an active seeker head, which allows these missiles to strike targets beyond the horizon. (Coincidentally, these do VERY well when cued by F-35s). AEW-C aircraft were designed to prevent enemies from being able to get close to the CSG, and additionally provide the ability to turn on active radar without revealing where the CSG is. So really, while saturation is simple, the US's main surface combatant was designed with the sole purpose of destroying such saturation attacks. You'd have to put a lot of missiles in to oversaturate a modern CSG's defenses.

The other big problem is targeting. If you want to shoot something, you have to see it. The ocean is a VERY big space, and carriers can move quite a bit. Lots of room to maneuver. Very difficult to find where they really are, and during the Cold War, they got VERY good at not being found. Read the following link. It's an interesting lead, and also answers the submarine question, although I'll repeat much the same in the next paragraph. http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-031.php

Submarines are great. Modern submarines can be very dangerous to ships. However, ships, or more precisely, the helicopters on those ships, are incredibly dangerous to submarines. However, the biggest problem a submarine has is, again, finding the carrier group in the first place, and then moving into firing position from there. Again, the ocean is a BIG place, and submarines can't sense as far as airborne sensors (in most conditions), and they especially don't move as quickly. And once they find the carrier, maneuvering into a firing position is difficult, given the relative speeds, and how much noisier the submarine is if it goes fast. And so, it normally needs to be where the carrier is going to be before the carrier gets there. In an exercise with a predefined box, a submarine could quite literally sit on the bottom, waiting for the chance that the CV moves over it, and have decent odds at it occurring. In the real world with no predetermined box? Where the carrier has freedom of movement? Not so likely.

>>2239462Stealth characteristics of forwards swept wings? I've never read anything about them. As a half-educated guess, I would suspect that theoretically they would be somewhat less stealthy than swept-back wings from the frontal aspect, due to the potential of reflecting radar into the body and then back at the receiver. That's theoretical, but I don't think that it would really occur often enough to be a real detriment. Again, this is just me making my best guess, I have no clue how it would work in actuality, and have read nothing on the subject.

>>2239524Oh no, it's something all navies go through. There's a rotational system that the Navy goes through to make sure it has carriers out all the time. In theory, 33% are on deployments, 33% are readying for deployments via training or other means, and 33% are undergoing significant refits (and are thus unable to be used even if you wanted to). So you have 66% of your ships theoretically able to react to situations. That's 7 ships of 11. Realistically, at least one or two of those are going to be not available for use at the problem point. So really, we'd be going to war with somewhere between 3-5 CSGs at the problem area at most.

>>2239308>knows the name of the task force is Rainbow, and that the title of the book was Rainbow Six because it was Clark's radio callsign as the CO of Rainbow, not the name of the organizationHoly shit are you me?>>2239373Nah, you have to remember, Kaji ACTED like a horndog, but it was all a front. The Kaji that exists in others' minds, isn't real. It's a persona he projects both to keep others at a distance, and to cover up his multiple-agent activities. It's strongly implied that the only woman he ever actually bedded was Misato.Sorry, Kaji is easily my favorite character in Eva, and it always irks me how many viewers get fooled by the false self he shows the world.

>>2239417I would also like to point out RE:submarines, just because a submarine can sneak up on a CSG during peacetime or during an excercise does not mean that it can do the same during wartime. Assuming that is, that they even did sneak up on the CSG during whatever exercise.

>>2239237[] Tell her you don't know and can't possibly know. Let's just get this done and let it go.>>>Tell her you don't know why, but you do know that there is absolutely no reason why he would need to have his laptop in the plane, for flying or otherwise.

>>2239859Contrary to what they show in movies, satellites cannot track targets in real time, especially MOVING targets. They are locked into set orbits that they cannot deviate from so their actual coverage is limited.

And this isn't even getting into the fact that you also actually have to FIND the carrier. You can't just pick a random spot in the ocean and expect to see it.

>>2239862Of course not, but they do get some coverage and I'm not talking about tracking one in real time that's already at sea via satellite just because you feel like it, that'd be retarded. You would start attempting to track them from when they're in dock. Limited coverage and the ocean being huge do make it difficult, but that's when you start making educated guesses based on what you think they might be up to and other things such as the condition of the ocean. Is all of this shit likely to fail? Somewhat, but they would give SSNs an idea of where start lurking.

>>2239859>Not that dude, but do you really think there aren't a bunch of dudes in a room 24/7 monitoring carrier activity from satellite images?I'm realistic about satellite's ability to spot ships. They had those back in the 80s too. Satellites whose dedicated purpose was finding ships in the sea. Obviously, modern satellites are more advanced, but if there was no other possibility, those satellites could be rendered unusable via jamming or ASAT operations.

>>2239904More realistically, in the event of a hot war between peer- or near-peer opponents, most of the observation sats reachable with ASAT missiles are going to be so much as scrap within the first few hours of a war breaking out

>>2239917I'm not sure about that. Jamming is a bit more of an elegant solution and doesn't blow your load too early, nor does it pollute the few good orbital locations. Why blow something up with non-reusable weapons when jamming does the same job, but for cheaper, and you keep the ASAT weapons for if you REALLY need them.

>>2239940You can't really overcome jamming from a satellite. Not much it can really do. And destruction of satellites is not always the best way to neutralize them, nor is it advisable. When you can, for example, jam all the satellites you want from the safety of inland China, why wouldn't you?

>>2239948Oh mighty Tech-Anon, two questions: 1) What is the purpose of the squaring on the wings of the F-22?2) Can a radar guided missile, such as the AIM-120 AMRAAM, achieve a radar lock on a stealth plane such as the F-22 or F-35?

>>2240295Not that guy, but I can get that 2nd one.Yes it can, but the range at which it will get a lock is greatly reduced compared to a non stealth plane.What the fuck is stealth anyway and how do you put it on a plane. Simple version: plane geometry made to reflect radar waves anywhere except straight back and radar absorbent materials (Paint)

I'm not those guys and not super well versed in sensors, but I'm gonna guess it'll depend on the power/size of the set and the exact nature of the shape and RAM used. A flying wing like a B-2 has inherent advantages in RCS over some block-cludge like the F-117 (which flies like shit).

Not directly related, but Also doing research like this, I would like to point out it's 2016 in this universe and in our own universe the Chinese have supposedly built a working Quantum Radar since 2016. This would defeat most conventionally "stealthed" objects, though like our LIDAR set it has an optical component, so I don't think it would work through obstruction.

>>2240295I'm going to assume that you mean to ask why the wings of the F-22 are only angular, with no curves on them, only straight lines. Short answer: it makes the aircraft more stealthy.

Long answer: So to really understand why, we need to cover how radar works. The radar emits energy in the form of radio waves. These radio waves travel out until they hit something, then bounce back. If they bounce back into the radar receiver (which normally is essentially the same site as the emitter, but it doesn't TECHNICALLY have to be), the receiver will pick it up and translate the data by figuring out how long it took to bounce back. It's essentially like echolocation. However, you need enough of the radar waves bouncing back into the emitter to be able to determine that there is indeed something there, and it's not just a false positive, and even more to be able to determine what that is. You also need to have a computer in the radar that is able to interpret the data coming in, with a more powerful processor being able to come to the same conclusion with less data, meaning you can detect the given object from farther out. So with that, we get a basic idea of how to reduce one's visibility to radar- reduce the amount of radar waves bouncing off you and back towards the receiver. You can accomplish this with certain materials which absorb certain amounts of radar energy, preventing some of it from bouncing back, but the first big way they did this was with extreme angles. Take a look at the F-117. It is extremely angular, and these angled surfaces were intended to make most radar waves bounce off at an angle, and not back towards the receiver. It was an extremely primitive way to do it, but they didn't have computer assisted designing back then (at least to the extent we do now), so it was really the best they could do. So you have the completely flat bottom, which works REALLY well if the radar source is anywhere but directly under the aircraft, but with proper flight planning, that shouldn't be an issue. If the radar IS directly underneath them, on the other hand, they've got a perfectly flat surface facing them, a radar's dream. Ultimately, this explains how the F-117 was lost in Serbia. The Serbs had a launcher placed directly underneath the F-117's known flightpath, and even then, with modified missiles and the bomb bay door jammed open, they were only barely able to get a lock when it was right over top of them. Modern stealth aircraft no longer need to be that angular, and can diffuse radar with curves that have been carefully calculated with computer assistance, but angles still have their place in assisting in this.

As for whether a radar guided missile could see a stealth aircraft, the answer would be yes. Physics dictates that it's much easier to see an object as you get closer to it. How close that really is is classified, I have no idea. I could probably make a guess if I went digging around and did some math, but I'm kinda lazy.

>>2240413radar is intensely fuckyon the shore-based set I'm familiar with, a 2 ton yacht's mainsail had a larger return than a 30k ton ferry, and both of them would vanish entirely inside a driving band of rain.

sometimes the system wouldn't be able to track a supertanker (in a bay full of supertankers) and then when it reacquired it would choke on the speed/bearing calculations (200k ton oil ninja: *teleports behind u*) and we'd have to soothe the system's panicked bleating.

>>2240550>>2240541Also this guy:https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLr7UZ_rywxTFdhDfu7SFimAMAUVdpabKLMakes some pretty good points about the F-35. In particular, in regards to the single v twin engine debate, there's two reasons why they went with a single engine.1) In most modern fighter engines, if/when they fail, they tend to fail in an extremely violent manner, which, if it happens in flight, will most likely take the second engine and probably the entire plane with it when it fails.2) In the current service, there have been statistically more Class A Mishaps in twin engine planes vs single engine planes, mostly attributed to mechanic error derived from the increased complexity of maintaining twin engine birds.

>>2240561Wasn't the reason they went with the F-22 over the YF-23 because the Navy was looking at converting the F-22 into a variable sweep wing carrier capable version? I remember reading that somewhere.

>>2240552Could you? Theoretically. Would it even in any way be remotely feasible? Not in the slightest. Now, the F135 is a big bitch, and you could PROBABLY fit two engines into its space if you REALLY wanted to, but it wouldn't be good. The F135 is already the most powerful single engine ever produced. The thing is fucking insane. 43,000 lbf when the afterburner's on. Regarding twin engine VTOL, I wouldn't want to have to make both engines turn downward. Once you did, the plane could have catastrophic results if the engines weren't at the same angle as each other or were producing asymmetrical thrust.

>>2240564Lockheed said they could make a navalized version of the F-22, that is true, but I don't believe that was the deciding factor. Now, we don't know for certain what their reasoning for choosing the F-22 over my planefu, the YF-23, but based on what I've heard, I believe there are a couple reasons for this.

First, Northrop's performance with the B-2. The B-2 was going through some very big problems at that point in time. Costs were skyrocketing and the budget was being slashed. The Air Force might not have thought Northrop was up to making a good project without similar difficulties, wanted to punish them, or simply wanted to give Lockheed a fighter to keep them afloat as a potential fighter producing company. Preservation of the industrial base is a very important consideration strategically. A lot of people say things about the military industrial complex, but they have no clue what it actually is or the steps taken to ensure its survival, and just use it to sort of yell against militarism and hawkish governments.

Second, and in my opinion what was probably the decisive reasoning, the F-22 was supposedly more agile. You see, stealth fighters were still somewhat new. As a nation, we had no clue how far stealth was going to affect engagement distances. Imagine two stealth aircraft coming at each other. Neither can see the other, let alone get a lock on them, until they are 20 nmi away from each other. Each is moving at at least Mach .8. That distance is going to be eaten up REAL quick, and you're going to end up in a nasty dogfight, up close and personal. When you're in that dogfight, you're going to want every last piece of maneuverability you can get. That's why the F-22 won, as I see it. The YF-23, from what we can tell, was likely going to be the somewhat better aircraft if it was pushing around nonstealth aircraft, but if adversaries procured stealth aircraft, the F-22 would probably be the correct choice.

>>2240574If they wanted to keep engine commonality with the STOVL variant, yes, I could say that those problems would make single engine somewhat of a shoe-in. It's also probably a good idea to make the low end of the high/low mix (for the USAF anyways) have a single engine. Probably makes for faster maintenance than working on two engines, too, although I haven't seen any numbers on it.

>>2240588One thing that I was reading about was that the F-22 can supercruise while the F-35 can't. How much of that is due to the specific engine, and how much of that is due to it being a single engine fighter vs the twin engine F-22. And what kind of differences go into making an engine designed to be able to supercruise, I'm guessing it's not just a max thrust thing?

Oh, I knew it was a thing- just like the vatnik's 'plasma sheath stealth' or the Chinese 'carrier killing ballistic missile' that are totally going to reverse the American military advantage guys, totally. (or anything North Korea claims to have that is entirely going to overpower and destroy any and all American and Japanese aggressors ever)

That said, Keep in mind, in setting, the American military in general, and aviation in specific, has benefited from having Merlin working R&D for nearly 15 years. Your old RIO is nothing short of a world-altering genius, and, in setting, is likened to Tesla more times than not.

>>2240586Not necessarily. The wide adoption of stealth tech means it's more important than ever to achieve early detection.

Plus, the traditional dogfight is pretty much an extinct idea these days, especially considering how capable the latest generation of missiles are. You don't even have to be actually be facing your target to lock and launch a missile anymore and modern heatseekers are terrifyingly agile.

>>2240586Yes, I would say that it certainly make it more important than when bullying nonstealth aircraft, but that doesn't quite tell the whole story. Near as we can tell, the F-22 and F-35 are significantly more stealthy than at least the PAK-FA, or whatever number they gave it these days, and I would suspect the same of the J-20, although, understandably, information on this is extremely limited. This, combined with presumably superior American radars and sensor sharing, gives the American planes a decent "immunity zone", not borrow a phrase from armored ships, meaning that there will be a sizable distance where they should be able to see and shoot the other guy without being seen and shot in return. But even presuming that said zone doesn't exist, missile technology has advanced substantially. The AIM-9X, and other HOBS weapons, lessen the requirement for maneuverability in a dogfight, as you don't have to point your nose on the target, although the missile certainly appreciates it when you do. The missile can actually turn around and hit someone behind you, but it has more energy, and consequently probably a higher pk, if you launch it forwards.

>>2240589You're getting into engine design here and I'm not well enough read to comment on the subject with much credibility. However, I can explain what supercruise is. Cruising speed in aircraft is that speed at which you achieve maximum fuel economy. If you use the afterburner, you're literally dumping fuel into the engine, and that obviously makes it very fuel intensive to use. In order to pass the speed of sound and go supersonic, most aircraft need to use the afterburner to not only pass through the tough resistance surrounding the speed of sound (for a long time people thought it was just impossible to break, hence the "sound barrier"), but also to maintain that speed once they're there. Thus, supersonic flight couldn't ever be cruising. Supercruise is actually being able to turn off your afterburner and maintain fuel efficient flight at supersonic speed. Supersonic cruise. Supercruise. In my understanding, it's likely mostly due to increased engine power without afterburners, "dry thrust", but again, this isn't an area I feel confident in addressing.

Just to note, some people will contend that the F-35 can supercruise, because by using a brief use of afterburner, the F-35 can then maintain a supersonic sprint for a substantial distance using just dry thrust. Others will say that it isn't true supercruise. My thoughts are that it might as well be supercruise, as it'll accomplish the same thing if you wanted to ingress or egress, and you'd switch to a more normal cruising speed most of the time even if you had true supercruise, as it's more fuel efficient.

>>2240589>How much of that is due to the specific engine, and how much of that is due to it being a single engine fighter vs the twin engine F-22.The F-35's engine is actually more powerful than one of the F-22's, so it's because the F-35 is a single-engine craft. Keep in mind that the F-22 was designed as an air superiority fighter, so having the speed to intercept enemy aircraft is important to its mission. The F-35 is multirole, and speed is less of a necessity because ground targets are relatively slower or stationary.

>>2240674If it weren't for sensor fusion, yes. That's part of why the F-35 is such a big leap forwards. All that information is collected, collated, and coherently displayed. This essentially does all the jobs a RIO would really be doing, or makes the information so fast to parse that the pilot can make decisions without him. You don't have to look in four different locations, it's all right there and easy to read. It's a big fucking deal. Means the pilot not only has the information, he has the time to make decisions. Apparently the F-35 pilots have really liked that, and in exercises, have stuck around after they've done their missions giving information and instructions to other aircraft.

The one potential area that a RIO might be wanted for is CAS or some other fast flowing bombing scenario, and I know the Israelis expressed at least passing interest in a two seated variant several years ago, but have seen nothing else about it since then.

>Tell her you don't know why, but you do know that there is absolutely no reason why he would need to have his laptop in the plane, for flying or otherwise.

You shrug, thinking over the various regulations regarding outside electronics. Generally, when you're flying, especially on a cruise like this, you don't ever have time for a laptop- or anything else- inside the cockpit, really. Besides that, the aircraft's computer can handle just about anything you could want it to- they're modular and kept bleeding edge by the navy.

They also require special software to interface with- stuff that's controlled incredibly strictly and generally not compatible with civilian computers. The diagnostic carts are designed for the job, and maintained specifically for it- they don't work with anything other than the Fenrir.

“I don't know why He'd carry it onboard a flight.” You say, after a minute of thinking. “But there's no reason he'd need it for flying or anything else.”

“So you think he was hiding something too?” She asks.

You shrug. “I don't know enough to say.”

She frowns. “Billy and Una both say he was scummy and was just trying to get his own harem, like your dad.”

“It's not a harem.” you respond, almost by reflex.

She blinks. “Sorry, I didn't mean- I just mean, he wasn't happy with just one girl, is what they say.”

You nod.

“Well, they say he had... pictures.. .of us.” She continues, looking off to the side.

You quirk an eyebrow. “You knew?”

She shakes her head. “I thought about it, but-”

“You didn't want to believe.” You supply.

“I'm still not sure I do.” She says. “Becc and Kat don't.”

You shrug. This really isn't your fight. She points at the box. “There's a flash drive in there, I want to take a look at it.”

She shakes her head. “It's better than thinking we really lost something.” She says after a minute.

You shrug, pulling out a pocket knife and flipping it open before handing it to her, handle first. “Here.”

You set down the box and step back as she carefully slices through the tape along an edge, opening the cardboard box up. “I'm sorry to involve you in this.” She says, carefully going through the items inside- mostly clothing- before coming up with a single flash drive.

She nods, closing up the knife and handing it back to you. “Is it really as bad as Anastasia says?” She asks.

“What's she say?”

It's Jessie's turn to shrug as she indicates you should walk again while she pockets the flash drive. “She says there's always pressure about seeing people or heading back to one academy or other to work with a matron, whichever's there. Or about who she should date or things like that.”

You almost smile- almost. “That's basically normal, yes.” You say. “Lot of 'nice young ladies' I'm always being introduced to whenever I go with maman anywhere. She usually chased them off back then.”

“So you're pretty popular, too then, huh?” She asks.

“You could say that.” You respond.

“Is it because of your dad?” She asks. You shrug.

“I'm told it is.” You say.

She nods. “I know how it goes. Kind of. After grandpa was convicted, it's like I became radioactive.”

“I'd heard about that.” You say- Cunningham's fight against the Vietnamese ace witch 'colonel tomb' is the stuff of legend in flight school, and before your dad, one of the few instances of a conventional fighter beating a witch in a dogfight. He was convicted of bribery, fraud, and tax evasion about ten years ago- but that's never really gone over, being unrelated to his fight with colonel tomb.

She laughs, but it's a hollow sound. “Sure they do. I'm willing to bet no one caught it yet is all, and one of us will be reassigned.”

You shake your head. “Nah, not with Tabitha here.”

“You don't think so?”

You shake your head again. “Nah.” Tabitha is a lot of things, but you've heard how she instantly sided with your dad when it became apparent what kind of situation Wendy was in with the RAF- simply because of her family name. Wendy had made it clear that she practically worshiped your family for the kindness they'd shown her- the kindness they continued to show her.

Jessie's shoulders slump a little. “I hope not. Mom says it got bad after Grandpa got convicted, but I hit the fleet afterwards, so I never knew what it was like before. It's not bad here,Ana and Kat and Becc are all nice and Billy and Una couldn't care less about that kind of thing, but some other people do.”

“But not here.” You point out- knowing that Anastasia couldn't be any other way, having been raised in the household with Frank and Tabitha the way she was.

She shakes her head. “Not here, thank god.” She says, agreeing. “But I can't imagine it'd be as good anywhere else.” Her hand drops to the pocket she dropped the flash drive into earlier. “Which is why this is really important. We don't need the attention on Garcia and the unit.”

The way she says it indicates to you there was something there, though you don't say anything about it.

She continues. “I want to believe Billy's wrong.” She says. “But I don't think he is. I was hoping you'd think he was right too.”

“Not really my business.” You say. She looks back at you.

“No, no I guess not.” She says. “Here.” She indicates a cart on the hangar deck, one full of mail crates. “That's outbound for the next COD bird. Go ahead and put the box on there, and we can go see what's on this thing.”

[] “I don't really think that's my place. You can tell me after you look, if you think you need to.”[] Just nod- you're already this involved, may as well finish this thing out.

>>2240942[x] “I don't really think that's my place. You can tell me after you look, if you think you need to.”Honestly, not sure whether this is the right vote for my overall intent, which is: "Let me hear it secondhand."

>>2240934Yo Ghost, I've always really liked your characterizations, but your craft is definitely improving. This scene feels more confident, like you're trusting your impressions to come across (they do). Appreciate that you like to write for us so much, and it's nice to see how it's changed over the last (shit) 5 years.

>>2240942>[] “I don't really think that's my place. You can tell me after you look, if you think you need to.”It's not for us to see, we're uninvolved. Let others discover what they may, I want to keep out of this drama.

>>2240942>[X] Just nod- you're already this involved, may as well finish this thing out.May as well find out.>You'd think they'd want to keep you as far as possible from someone like me.>Sure they do. I'm willing to bet no one caught it yet is all, and one of us will be reassigned.This shit almost makes me want to waifu her just out of spite for Witch politics bullshit.

>>2241614I think it's just as likely that the Navy doesn't want an embarrassment like a Cunningham in the same unit as a Bishop, and a potential future Frank Bishop, and fuck Witch politics, they're doing it because of their own desire to be able to have another all-star squadron.

>>2241739In-universe:>He was convicted of bribery, fraud, and tax evasion about ten years ago- but that's never really gone over, being unrelated to his fight with colonel tomb.He seems to be Vietnam-era pilot Charles J. Cunningham with WWII RAF pilot John Cunningham's late life money woes.

>>2240942>[X] Just nod- you're already this involved, may as well finish this thing out.

Going by what she's been saying, Jessie wants someone to back her up on this, preferably someone not already involved in the Garcia situation.We're the only person in the squadron who fits the bill, since I don't feel our RIO is mature enough to deal with this kinda shit on top of her work.

>>2242009My bad, I was scanning Wikipedia's Cunningham disambiguation page for pilots, but it lists him as a U.S. Representative. And I never heard of this guy, because I was in college at the time of the scandal.

[x] Just nod- you're already this involved, may as well finish this thing out.

You nod- you already involved this far, you might as well see it out to it's conclusion. Maman always taught you that if you're going to do something, you need to do it all the way through- don't quit part of the way done.

She nods, looking relieved. “It should be pretty simple, “ She says, looking around. “I can get my laptop from the squad bay, we can go to the officer's mess or something to plug it in and turn it on. I don't want to do it in the squad bay, just cos I don't want Becc or Kat finding out yet.”

“Anastasia?” You ask

She shakes her head. “Even if she didn't suspect, I'm sure you'd tell her if she asked, right?”

You shrug- it's not like you keep secrets from her on purpose, but there's plenty in your life she doesn't know about- and doesn't need to know about. Things, for example, like your date with Wendy.

You shrug, following her back through the ship to the squad bay, which, other than the faint sound of Kim's breathing, sits quiet and empty.

“They're probably up talking to the captain again.” She says. “They've been doing that a lot after Garcia died. What Bish- sorry. What she went through during the war with your dad is pretty well known.”

You nod- Tanana, Berlin, Crete. The big three- you know the stories of the first two, of course, but the third is still a bit of a mystery. The fight itself is a matter of record- there's news footage from the ground that's still shown in fighter school, but it's what came after that's mostly a question, even to you.

Jessie rummages in the drawers beneath her rack and above whoever's is on the bottom, pulling out an older laptop with stickers all over it's back. “C'mon, let's go.” She says, leading the way out of the squad back and back up to the officer's mess.

The lighting here is set at 50%, with the night watches on the ship, the place isn't nearly that active- there's some snack foods out, but nothing that'd make a meaningful meal, along with a few drinks, though nothing alcoholic.

You sit down across from the witch as she takes a seat across the room from the usual squadron table and flips open her laptop. About a minute later, she pulls the flash drive out of her pocket and looks at it.

“You know, it doesn't make sense.” She says. “If he was so paranoid about what he had that he'd take his laptop with him on every flight, then why would he just leave this thing laying around?”

“I mean, if it has what we think it has on it, then it's just as bad, right?” she asks, still not plugging it into her laptop- she's stalling. You can't say you blame her though.

You shrug again. “Maybe it doesn't.”

She frowns. “But it has to!” she insists. “if it doesn't, there's never going to be any proof...”

“Is that such a bad thing?” You ask. “He's dead. It's not like knowing will change anything, right?”

She shakes her head. “It's not that.” She says.

You quirk an eyebrow. “So what is it?”

She shakes her head again. “I'd rather not talk about it, not yet, ok?”

You shrug. “Your call.”

She nods, and takes a second to gather herself, then plugs it in.

It's an almost tense fifteen seconds, then you see her shoulders slump. “It's encrypted.” She says. “Probably can't get in at all, not without his laptop or whatever program he was using.” She sounds disappointed and relieved in equal measure- no doubt she wanted to know, but was scared of what she was going to find.

You nod, having expected either that or the flash drive having something utterly mundane and normal- though the encryption does point towards something rather underhanded.

“I'd look around on the internet for something to crack this.” She says, “But there's not going to be anything, I bet. Only option we'd have would be someone like Samanta Wells.”

[] Suggest she just drop it. The encryption is enough evidence, and there's other things to agonize over. [] Suggest asking Kim for help. She's not as much a computer genius as her sister, but she could maybe pull it off.

>>2240942>[] “I don't really think that's my place. You can tell me after you look, if you think you need to.”I don't care if I'm too late to vote, my browser wasn't showing new posts>>2244315>[] Suggest she just drop it. The encryption is enough evidence, and there's other things to agonize over.Fuck any continued engagement with this

>>2244315>[] Suggest she just drop it. The encryption is enough evidence, and there's other things to agonize over.Getting ourselves involved is stupid, if reasonable. But now you guy really want to drag Kim into this?

Also, despite how it appears in movies, most forms of encryption aren't externally visible as such. Security through obscurity is one of the most powerful first lines of defense, and is the default for most encryption schemes. Secondarily, most encryption isn't easily crackable without considerable supercomputer time; no one would bother with it otherwise.

>>22446873 Months later current encryption methods are deemed obsolete after somebody in the USN accidentally spills their cracking tools on the open net.>>2244721Because we have no idea if the guy is simply paranoid or actually hiding something incriminating.

>>2244535All of my shit has to be encrypted for work, which isn't really that sensitive. It's just an option you can switch when you're writing. In real life it doesn't mean anything incriminating, though maybe it does in ghost's story.

>>2244588If encryption can be cracked with a few thousand years of supercomputer time, that whole scheme is considered totally broken. Any system in current use can't be bypassed before the heat death of the universe. Which effectively means you don't break the math, you break the human factors, like using a common password that can be machine-guessed, or a bad configuration, or just by owning the machine it's running on.

>>2246157I work in IT--and admittedly nothing hardcore super-protected or classified--but the truism we've always operated by is "if the device is physically accessible, the data is as good as breached."

Mind, Garcia probably isn't working with top-tier government encryption for his private gear--and if he is, that's indicative in its own right.

Otherwise, you're right on the money--another truism of IT is that fucking nobody follows their own security protocols, anywhere, ever.

>>2246192You can have secure /storage/ with full encryption, like in this case with flash memory, but yeah, if that was his laptop you could probably pull the keys off the unpowered RAM. TLDR, it's possible for it to be unrecoverable, but he could've fairly easily screwed up hiding it

>>2244315>[] Suggest asking Kim for help. She's not as much a computer genius as her sister, but she could maybe pull it off.We're already rooting through a dead man's effects on suspicion of wrongdoing, might as well keep goin.

[x] Suggest asking Kim for help. She's not as much a computer genius as her sister, but she could maybe pull it off.

You consider suggesting she just drop it for now- there's no reason it should be encrypted, you think, unless there was something really incriminating on it. At least, as far as you're concerned- there's almost certainly something funny going on here, weather or not it's as simple as the guy just having pictures he shouldn't of the witches, or if it's something worse.

You shrug. “We could ask Kim.” You say. Jessie looks at you over the top of her laptop, and you shrug. “She's not as much of a computer genius as her sister, but she might be able to crack it open for us.”

“You think she would?” The witch asks, unplugging the flash drive from her laptop and putting it back in her pocket. “She seems like she's not real interested in helping.”

You shrug. “She's nervous and there's personal issues between her and I.” You respond. “She'll do it if we ask.”

“She was asleep when we stepped out here, though.” She says. “Do you really want to wake her over this?”

You shrug again.

[] This is the only time we can keep it between us three till tomorrow night, most likley. [] No, you're right. We'll let her sleep, this can wait till tomorrow.

I'm concerned that this may be time-sensitive, but this isn't a task we should give to a grouchy tired witch. If someone else gets involved because we waited, too bad. This shit should have been dealt with a long time ago anyway and if the whole squadron finds out about what we're doing, it'll at least give everyone a chance to square things and move on.

After thinking about it, you shake your head. “No, you're right.” You say. “We'll let her sleep, this can wait till tomorrow.”

Jessie nods, pulling the flash drive out to look at it, as if she stared hard enough, it'd reveal it's contents to her. “It's a shame he took his laptop with him.” She says. “With that I bet we could find out what was on this no problem.”

She's correct enough in that- you're still trying to figure out why he carried his laptop aboard the jet anyway- and the only answer you can come up with is he wanted to hide something. As to how he carried it aboard- well, security always does seem to have been pretty relaxed aboard carriers- though maybe that's going to change.

“No sense in worrying about it.” You say.

“I guess not.” She responds. “Maybe if it survived the crash they can salvage the data off it, I know there's some really good recovery specialists out there.”

“Then let's let it go for the night.” You say. “I'm sure you've got things to do tomorrow too.”

She shakes her head. “Not really.” She says. “Especially not if flight ops are canceled. Usually Me and Anastasia or Kat just sit alert on the deck or help maintain the strikers if we're not flying. Shipboard life is boring. At least shoreside we can go drinking or something.”

You nod, even though your only real cruise, other than this one, was the training cruise on the coral sea in the gulf of Mexico, and that was far from boring. Well, there was plenty to do, anyway, even if it wasn't always interesting things.

It's a dead end. She's asking to more about us, and probably compare her experiences being descended from a guy who was famous and is now infamous.

It's completely avoidant. We've already seen that both are true, and both can be true in the quest. Just answering "gee I dunno, it's a thing" seems counterproductive and obtuse. It doesn't seem like it's offering an opportunity for her to actually get to know us like she wants, and seems kind of douchey after we've just been in kind of a tense personal thing. Like, we're not here to replace the dead guy, but we've also been trying to integrate with the squad, this is a chance to get real with her.

Most people would probably think you're being a prick if your response to "hey, what's life like for you" is "I dunno, my life".

Guys, I'm sorry, I'm going to have to call this here, just woke up from a short unplanned nap on the desk, haha. We'll finish it out tomorrow, using the votes from the last post tonight as the OP for next week.

Really sorry guys, guess I'm just not used to going all night like I used to be. Getting old is hell.

>>2247489>[] Lots of pressure- your parents set a high bar for you to clear, even without meaning to.>[] Lots of opportunity- your name is enough to get you in the door most places, but it's on you after that.Both is good.

>>2247489Definitely both--Morgan's too smart not to recognize the doors his parents open for him, especially with the skills his mother taught him. Likewise, though, he's got two legends to live up to.

>>2248130Addendum I meant to put in since I need my fucking coffee holy shit. If he emphasizes one or the other, I'd imagine he leans towards:[x] Lots of opportunity- your name is enough to get you in the door most places, but it's on you after that.

>>2247489>[X] Lots of pressure- your parents set a high bar for you to clear, even without meaning to. >[X] Lots of opportunity- your name is enough to get you in the door most places, but it's on you after that.

I'm iffy on going for both. I don't think Morgan would care to use his name to advance his career, but the "it's on you after that" shows that he's aware of the opportunities *and* that he needs to take advantage of them through his own talent, which seems like an accurate representation of his personality so far.

>>2247489>[] Lots of pressure- your parents set a high bar for you to clear, even without meaning to. >[] Lots of opportunity- your name is enough to get you in the door most places, but it's on you after that.